


minimum safe distance

by eris



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: 2x18, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 08:03:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/733384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eris/pseuds/eris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes he couldn't remember what boundaries felt like to have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	minimum safe distance

It was 2am when the buzzer sounded, and John lowered his P220 halfway to the entry hall because he could hear Bear's plaintive whine from outside the door. There'd been no warning call, on any of his three separate phones: unlikely to be an emergency. It was late, but a cursory mic-check would have made it clear that he hadn't been sleeping. Finch had probably even made one, determined to uphold the standard of courtesy though they both knew John never counted on sleeping his nights through uninterrupted. There were some luxuries wholly civilian, beyond even Finch's capacity to endow.

Finch's eyes were tight with exhaustion, the crests of his cheeks reddened from cold, but otherwise he looked much the same as John had left him hours before, much the same as ever: discrete from everything, all surface tension that refused to break. He was still wearing a suit, neat lines and layers unrumpled, but he hadn't brought any of his various laptops. From his posture John could assess no unforseen crises, and his grip on the pistol relaxed minutely. Not a number; not Root. Just another Finch operation he would only understand when Finch let him. 

John stood back from the door and beckoned Finch inside like unannounced and unnecessary visits were perfectly commonplace between them. Sometimes he couldn't remember what boundaries felt like to have.

"Finch," he prompted, slowly, drawing out the vowel with an upward lilt because he ought to sound at least vaguely surprised. He let Bear lap at his empty palm while Finch looked over his shoulder to confirm they were alone, purely reflex, as though facial recognition engines of his own design weren't monitoring every entrance and exit in the building. The loft was mostly negative space, just the desk lamp and the diffuse glow from the street giving light; John's own instinct was to not reward scrutiny. Finch still wasn't talking, so he added, "Get you a drink?"

Bear chuffed and tugged at his lead. Finch shuffled in, sparing not a glance for the gun at John's side. He shrugged out of his coat and hung it up carefully, then unclipped the lead so that Bear could skitter ahead to investigate new scents at the perimeter. He wound the leash in his fist and hung that up, too, and still several more moments passed right there in front of John's door before Finch seemed to remember John had asked him a question. He rubbed at the chill in his fingers and said, "That won't be necessary, Mr Reese."

Finch smelled like the city and his usual aftershave, no trace of liquor on his breath, but there was something distinctly off-balance that John couldn't place. His eyes didn't wander overtly, nor did he startle at John's guiding hand on his arm. He could have done worse with himself, John supposed. All things considered.

"Have a seat, Harold," John murmured, and went to his kitchen anyway. He un-cocked the gun and left it next to the sink while Finch hesitated in his peripheral vision, then lowered himself onto John's sofa. Spine straight, faced resolutely forward, like someone bracing to receive bad news, but John was fairly sure he had no more news to deliver, that Finch had got there all on his own this time. In fact, John was pretty sure he'd been summarily _dismissed_ for the night, that Finch had made perfectly clear his preference to wrap up Lou's case alone. If Finch ever made penitence it was privately done.

John filled a glass with water, because it was too late for coffee and Finch wouldn't appreciate the suggestion of whiskey even if John hadn't finished the bottle an hour ago. He lingered a minute or two afterward, rinsing and filling a bowl for Bear as well, so that by the time he returned Finch had finally settled a little. He was cleaning his glasses with a handkerchief and watching myopically as Bear paced the dark line of windows.

"Can't tell my landlord," John said wryly, following his line of sight. "Pet policy was real specific. Hardwood floors."

"I expect it won't be a problem, Mr Reese."

John did not expect it would, either; Finch owned the real estate firm and half the block besides. But the words had been flat and distracted, lacking the usual indignant snap John's teasing provoked.

John set the cup down on the coffee table and sat half on the arm of the couch at Finch's side, closer than strictly necessary. The shallow light from the desk barely reached them, but it was enough to know Finch was still fidgeting. John watched his hands for a while, and silence sprawled out between them, but that part was easy enough; if there were anything to be said for near-constant audio surveillance, it was that awkwardness didn't hold up for long. John was comfortable with silence.

He was also well within rights to ask why Finch had come, but he knew when to push his luck.

"That other investigation," John offered eventually, a soft and unthreatening drawl once Finch's lenses were about as clean as they were ever going to get. "Interesting new development there."

Finch's hands had gone utterly still somewhere in the middle of the sentence, and the whole of him stayed frozen for long a moment after. Then he exhaled, audibly, and pocketed the cloth. He pressed his glasses back to his nose and said, "Oh, I'm sure you have much to tell."

Even in the half-light Finch's eyes were sharp and unmistakably blue. John shrugged, so that his shoulder brushed Finch's, brief and warm. "Turns out he's a really bad gambler."

Finch could have counted cards since grade school, John was certain, mapped out those banal probabilities in his sleep--but it was worth it, for the surprised twitch of a smile, the way some of Finch's tension seemed to recede, just a little. "Perhaps he's an unlucky man after all," Finch said, dry.

"I don't know," John mused, grateful for the familiar rhythm. "Things are looking up for him lately. It's been almost five whole hours since anyone zip-tied him to a chair."

Finch snorted, and it wasn't a laugh, but the smile encroached on more of his mouth. Briefly. Good enough for the moment. A social call was unprecedented, let alone at such an hour, and Finch didn't make gestures lightly; he would come to the point when he was ready. It was much easier to wait when he wasn't so tightly wound.

Finch toyed with the water glass now, turning it in useless little circles in his hands, tapping at the sides but not drinking. John didn't have a spare keyboard to offer him, so he waited, relaxing into the pleasant undertow of calm brought on by surrender to inevitability. Finally, Finch set the glass back onto the table and said, "It's growing very late."

John made a quiet sound of assent. It was late.

Finch said, "I think if you're going to be any use to us tomorrow you should be getting to bed. Don't you?"

John nodded again, consciously mild-eyed and agreeable while aware of every novel twitch in the angles of Finch's face. He had never learned much from his secret cartography of Finch expressions, but patterns could yet emerge with more data. Finch would appreciate his methodical approach to the problem.

Finch only sighed, the softest sound passing over his lips so that John almost leaned forward to hear it. He looked down and uncurled his fingers from the fists they had made, then said, "Come to bed, Mr Reese."

When Finch pushed himself up he faltered a moment, joints stiff with exhaustion, and John reached automatically, pressed a steadying palm to his back. Finch stepped away from the touch and the red tinge was spreading again, cheeks to ears, his breathing gone noticeably shallow. But he looked right into John's eyes for a few long, stretching seconds, then he turned, and he was crossing the room to John's bed.

John stood in front of his couch and felt nothing but a stuttering sense of being shaken from context. When he tried to re-assess the situation he kept coming up short, all equations that refused to balance until he wasn't sure what to do with them anymore. 

John had spoken no platitudes at the library: he believed every word that he'd said, believed in Finch more than anyone else living to do what was right rather than what was easy. But John also knew there was a difference between giving up what one longed for and the willingness to give up longing for it, and Finch wasn't fooling anyone that he'd ever managed the latter. John could hardly have appealed to his scruples, either, even if it were really his place; questioning Harold's ethical conduct with regard to one single person in the world would be less like throwing stones in glass houses and more like systematically demolishing glass houses with plastic explosives.

In all other respects Finch seemed to treat his life like it was a Turing test in reverse. John could only speculate on whatever calculus had taken him from his hermitage at the library to knocking on John's door well after midnight, but he didn't like a single one of his theories.

It was so much harder than he remembered, though, to subtract the weight of Finch's judgment from his own. Bear was curling up near Finch's feet while Finch stripped with startlingly military efficiency, shedding his neat layers and folding them on top of the bureau until he was left in nothing but boxers and a white undershirt. It was ridiculous and hypnotic and by Finch standards wholly indecent. John's temples throbbed with the beginnings of a tension headache.

"Harold," he said, but he had no plan yet for the end of the sentence. Finch was facing the wall, spine very straight, and it seemed absurd to try for a conversation across the full span of the room, so John followed Finch to the bed, pausing for the first time in the entirety of their acquaintance to calculate exactly how much space he ought to leave between them. Proximity was a variable he'd never had to control for, with Finch. He stopped just short of arm's length because Finch's shoulders rose and fell with a great inhalation of breath, and John had learned early on not to doubt Finch's resolve, but he had a well-honed instinct for timing and everything about this exchange left a strange, desperate knot in his throat.

"Harold," he tried again, soft and low. "This will go a bit easier if you look at me, won't it?"

Harold muttered something under his breath, and before John could prompt him, said louder: "Easier said than done, Mr Reese."

Then again, John had never paid the radius of safety much heed. There was a peculiar thrum of adrenalin under his skin, paradoxically steadying, like he only felt staring down a gun's barrel. Harold's shoulder was solid under John's hand, very warm. " _Finch_ ," and the demand was enough to pull him halfway, but Finch's brows drew together, his face no less inscrutable in profile.

"I realise this must seem rather forward," Finch began, bristling, so John pressed a hand to his chin until Finch went still. His eyes had gone so dark John couldn't breathe, so John turned his face to the right angle and kissed him.

He wasn't sure whether he'd meant it to be quelling or reassuring, but intent slipped away from him quickly. John filed kissing into his mental record of Finch's expansive skill-set. The tension never left Harold entirely, but his mouth opened fast into John's, hot and wet and without any trace of the timidity John might have expected if he'd ever allowed himself to think about it. Harold didn't use his hands but the messy insistence of his tongue drove a shudder through John's entire body, an electric frisson of nerves he could get lost in, and he wanted that so badly it was nearly overwhelming, he _wanted_ \--

Harold didn't have many tells, but John knew from a near-imperceptible shaking that it had been a very long time since he'd touched anyone like this. Since Grace, probably. He had probably thought of it as being faithful.

John drew back first. He was nowhere near out of breath, but somehow his lungs were still aching. He forced a bit of space between them while Harold still looked too dazed to protest.

He said, "Okay," drawing out the vowel again, just a nonsense sound to clear the air, give Harold time to swallow and lower his eyes. And then again, because he still needed a moment himself--"You okay?"

Harold's face underwent a swift progression of expressions that for once were incredibly obvious: from something like regret, to startled offense, then finally closed off again, still. He opened his mouth and--"Don't answer that," John pleaded hastily. Because there wasn't anything in particular that he wanted to hear, but deflection was not it for sure.

Passing moments spread out like a buffer zone and Harold levelled him a long, considering look. The flush in his cheeks hadn't receded, but his eyes were focused now, analytical. "John," he said, perfectly even, and all John could think was that the tailored layers had been a double-bluff all along, that Finch was the least exposed between them. "Would it be fair to say we're both far too tired to continue this conversation right now?"

 _Conversation_. That was one word for it. John tried for a smile, but he could feel the mechanical parody it became. "Sounds fair to me."

Finch opened his mouth again, then hesitated, searching his face, and something in John's chest was oscillating between anger and misery too rapidly to differentiate either one. "I know what you must think of me, Mr Reese," he started, and John said, "No," but Finch lifted a hand and continued undeterred. "I confess I took mutual interest for granted. But I do think you've misread my intentions."

"This isn't what I would call subtle, Harold," John managed, dragging his eyes down Finch's frame.

Finch's shoulders drew in a little, but he held to his usual unreasonable tenacity. "I don't think I need to point out your complicity in the matter," he said, somewhat stiffly. "Only, I neglected to clarify that I--" and he paused again, wetting his lips unnecessarily. Bear made a grunting noise in his sleep and John stared Finch's mouth and thought about waking recently, into the tender detached calm that approximated happiness. How long he could hold onto even that much.

" _John_ ," Finch said, frowning, so John met his eyes obediently and waited, floating on the dull roar of blood in his ears. "I meant to say that I did _not_ intend for this to be a--temporary arrangement."

Out of nowhere, John thought, _imagine if she'd wanted to take your last name_ , and immediately felt ashamed to have thought it, to have lashed out even in his head. He had no real right to it, even there. The wild spinning feeling had faded into a more familiar haze of resignation. He sat down on the bed and toed off his shoes, then began to unbutton his shirt. "I thought we were too tired for this conversation, Harold."

Unexpectedly, Finch sat beside him, close enough to share warmth but still not quite touching. The smell of him was stronger without all the layers and John thought about pressing his whole face into it, then felt sick. "We'll sleep," Finch was saying, palms spread out flat on his thighs, imperturbed. He twisted his whole upper body to look into John's eyes. "Just sleep, Mr Reese, for now. But I thought you deserved to know that much, at least. I suppose the rest can wait until morning."

It could be so easy, sometimes, to let Finch decide what he deserved. Sometimes he could even believe it. But John knew perfectly well that he could never really fill in the particular gaps of what Finch had lost, even if Finch _had_ wanted him to. The thing was, John was very good at his job; he knew people, their emotions and responses and norms, and he knew outliers, the ones who were dangerous and the ones who were merely eccentric--

He knew it was not even remotely okay that he could remember with razor-sharp clarity a split-second instant on the rooftop--between semtex and a remote detonator and Harold's hands trembling at his chest--when he'd thought, _this is the happiest moment of my life_.

Finch deserved better than that. He deserved someone strong enough to tell him no when they ought to, someone from whom he wanted more than a sweet shortcut to fugue. But then, if everyone got what they deserved, he and Finch would be out of work.

There would almost certainly be a new number waiting in the morning. That was something, at least.

John closed his eyes until they stopped aching. He said, "stay the night, Harold," and turned off the last of the lights. Harold was already folding his glasses, as though John had only satisfied a formality.

Still, when he lay awake later, listening to the indifferent city noise mingled with Harold's breathing, Harold's hand brushed against his in the dark, and his pulse stuttered again, unreasoning. Every single part of him hurt. John said, " _you're still_ \--" and he couldn't finish the sentence, but Harold seemed to know what he'd meant. He said, "It's not a zero-sum game, John."

He could work within Finch's parameters. And he would; he'd known that much already, but the touch drove it right down to his bones, because if Harold were offering then it meant he could have this. If it was less than he wanted it was still more than he'd had. Good enough.

It might not make them feel any better, but it would make them feel. Beyond that it was best not to think about.


End file.
